Well, the time has come. My daughter is having her Yr 6 School Formal at the end of this month. If you are one of those highly organised mum’s you did all your research on the internet and found you can buy a flower girl dresses up to girl’s size 12, from Hong Kong for around $25, no postage, in any colour of the rainbow. Here is an example of what I call the mauve marshmallow dress.

The brief I got from daughter was periwinkle blue, long and flowy. We could not find anything on the internet that met the brief exactly. Then 21 year old son pipes up and says in front of daughter, “Mum, don’t buy off the internet, what if it looks terrible on her?”

This meant a trip to our local formal dress shop. The shop had forewarned me that they did not have much stock for 12 year olds, but that some styles in an adult 8 sizing may work. I was a little stunned to see the styles that she was offering me. She would say “this one was purchased by a Yr 6 mum for xxxx school” and I would shudder. I would look at the price tag and shudder some more. (The average 12 year old does not have a lot of call for a formal dress and so to spend upwards of $250 on a dress that would be worn less than 3 times seemed outrageous to me.)

I informed her very nicely that my daughter was not a street walker and asked if we could look at something long, blue and flowy. We found a bit of a bargain in cobalt blue (daughter’s other favourite colour) with a one shoulder adjustable strap (one shoulder’s all the rage at the moment apparently), ruching on the front bodice and shirring with a zip on the back bodice and then flowy from the hips.

We then found some funky silver chain in my sewing nik naks to use as the other strap. After removing 20 cm of excess hem on the under and over dress, plus hemming about 3 metres by hand, then teaming this with a handmade co-ordinating long silk scarf made in a silk paint class 2 years ago, we will have a very decent frock which can be cut down to cocktail length as she grows older.

We got some simple silver sandals to go with the dress and I will do a mani/pedi the night before with clear nail polish. My daughter has long straight hair down to her bottom. On the day of the formal, daughter is booked in for  a steam pod, trim and some ringlet curls around the face, will dress at the hair salon, throw on some lip gloss and go straight to the formal from there.

My daughter’s high fashion switch has not yet been flicked.
I hope this formal does not flick it!!